Today’s 11th stage was yet again flat, and traversed 206 km from Carpi to Novi Ligure, the former place of residence of Fausto Coppi, the legendary Italian cyclist. The 2.8 km long finishing stretch was rather uncomplicated and the stage promised to be a race for the fast men.

The peloton allowed the gap of the three escapees, who broke free right from the start to grow to a maximum of 6 minutes. Lotto-Soudal, Deceunink - Quick-step and Groupama - FDJ made the tempo in the field and as a result the advantage of the leading trio cam down to around 3 minutes with 55km to go.

Pascal Ackermann, who sustained injuries at a crash on yesterday’s stage, as well as his BORA - hansgrohe teammates, remained back in the peloton at this point. At the intermediate sprint, Pascal came to the front of the field and sprinted against Arnaud Démare for points, however he ended up losing his lead to the Frenchman in the sprint classification. After 195 km in the lead, the three escapees were then caught and the sprinter teams moved to the front. BORA - hansgrohe came with an almost full squad to the fore.

With only 8 km to go, the teams markedly increased the tempo and attempted to position their sprinters. Groupama - FDJ took the lead just ahead of BORA - hansgrohe, but when Pascal launched his sprint 300m from the line, he was overtaken at the last minute by Caleb Ewan, who surged past the German Champion to take out the stage. Pascal finished third, just behind Arnaud Démare. With that, he now sits second behind him in the points classification. The general classification remained unchanged after today’s stage, with Davide Formolo still lying in 17th position, while teammate Rafal Majka sits in 18th place.

Caleb Ewan wins stage eleven. Sirotti photo.

From the finish line:
“I’ve obviously had better days on the bike. In the morning I had a lot of pain, and in the race it was a little bit better, but I really suffered out there. In the end, I wanted to prove that I was able to be competitive. The guys did a perfect job. Perhaps I went a bit too early in the headwind, but I am really happy with this third place. It was hard fought for and I’m happy to still be here.”
- Pascal Ackermann

“First of all, respect for Pascal’s performance. He was able to yet again sprint to a podium place, despite his heavy fall yesterday. That shows that our guys rode very valiantly on today’s stage. We also had two riders that crashed, in Cesare Benedetti and Jay McCarthy, but they appear to be ok for now. Despite that, the guys were fully motivated to do their job and bring Pascal into a good position. The fact alone that he was willing to take the risk of mixing it up front for the stage victory deserves our full respect. It’s a shame that we lost the jersey, but perhaps there will be other chances to get it back.”
- Jens Zemke, sportlicher Leiter

GC second-place Primoz Roglic's Jumbo-Visma team posted this update:

Team Jumbo-Visma confidently heads towards the first mountain stage of this Giro d’Italia. The team of Addy Engels and Jan Boven made it through the flat eleventh stage without any problems. The stage finished in a bunch sprint. Primoz Roglic retained his second place overall.

Primoz Roglic heads to the start of stage 11. Sirotti photo

The stage to Novi Ligure was marked by an early breakaway of three riders and was easily controlled by the sprinter teams, who, for the time being, had their last chance today for a sprint. Team Jumbo-Visma protected team leader Roglic all day and faced no problems.

“For us it was a good day”, Addy Engels explained. “Just like yesterday, the race scenario was predictable. The boys were in position at the right moments and the objective was to stay out of trouble. We succeeded in that. From tomorrow onwards it will be completely different and we will encounter different race scenarios. We have to wait and see how strong we will be compared to the other teams. Primoz and the team are doing really well thus far and we confidently head toward the next stages.”

Giro heads to the mountains Thursday

Here are the map and profile of stage 12:

Here's the map of the 158 km Cuneo - Pinerolo stage

And here's the profile.

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